Marriage of connivance
‘Loose lips sink ships’ was the famous Second World War phrase which accurately warned of the dangers of allowing careless…
The flibbertigibbet Pope
After two Popes of towering intellectual and spiritual strength, it is difficult to become used to the fact that their…
The peaceful majority are irrelevant
Islam has exported its primitive, age-old and endless Sunni vs Shiite war of religious violence around the world, expanding it…
On a sensitive issue
In 1939 Paul Hasluck published ‘Our Southern Half Caste Natives and their condition.’ It was a pamphlet based on a…
A penance or a curse
If the UK general election had been a military battle it would be taught in Army staff colleges around the…
Business/Robbery etc
What’s left of Australia’s manufacturing industry needs to get its political hands dirty. If it really wants to survive it…
No pie in the sky
The authoritarian attitude of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has been challenged by Robin Speed, the President of the Rule of…
Deadly self-censorship
Political correctness is eating itself. It’s in very real danger of destroying us, and will do so while apologising for…
True Islam
Each new Islamic terrorist atrocity is denounced by western leaders such as our Prime Minister as a ‘twisted’ or ‘perverted’…
Tom Roberts The sculptor’s studio 1884-85
We may have seen them before, but the prospect of the Australian Impressionism show is very alluring; it has now…
Andrew Nicholl A distant view of Derry through a bank of wild flowers
Last week came the welcome announcement of the State Government’s funding of the major extension, indeed doubling, of the exhibition…
Tom Conroy as Winston Smith
‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’ That is the arresting opening line…
A N Wilson and Resolution
A sold-out session at the Sydney Writers’ Festival was an indication of public interest in the writer, A. N. Wilson,…
High life
A major Greek ship owner, whose political knowledge matches his wealth and business acumen, explained to me what the Qatar…
Low life
I got up, made a pot of coffee and sat and read the paper. A churchgoing charity worker had stolen…
Real life
Since moving to my dream home in the country a month ago, I’ve only had to fight a parking dispute,…
J.K. Rowling’s schizophrenic politics
On the face of it, there is nothing complicated about the politics of Harry Potter, who made his first appearance…
The turf
Back on the political beat with CNN for the general election, I was reminded how politics is now dominated by…
Whimsical digressions
The practical difficulties of extracting keys from the pockets of tight-fitting trousers while ascending stairs; the logistical hazards of seducing…
Size matters
Trust scientists to ruin all our fun. The spectacularly beautiful 2014 film reboot of Godzilla, it turns out, is anatomically…
Worthy, but wordy
Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality wryly depicts Goethe preparing for immortality — neatly laying out his life in Dichtung und Warheit…
Vice guys
In 1981, an FBI team visited Donald Trump to discuss his plans for a casino in Atlantic City. Trump admitted…
Fad fury
Anthony Warner is angry. He’s angry about diets. He’s angry about detoxes. He’s angry about pseudoscience — and he has…
Two dark tales
Just over halfway through this grim and gripping book, the author describes herself and her girlfriend ‘lying on my bed…
The appeal of mysticism
This extraordinary book has two main characters: Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), an early Zionist and the founder of the modern study…
A choice of first novels
Patty Yumi Cottrell’s blackly comic and sophisticated debut Sorry to Disturb the Peace (And Other Stories, £10) opens with Helen…
Life classes
It has taken much of a celebrated literary life for Elif Batuman to produce a novel. At the beginning of…
Verse and worse
Molly Brodak, a fair, young Polish-American born in Michigan, is a winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Iowa: that hotbed…
The disgrace of the British left
Giles Udy did not start out with the intention of writing this book. He was in Russia about 15 years…
Blood and bling
There must be any number of self-respecting gemmologists out there on first-name terms with other diamonds, but for most of…